never odd or even

i've been reading pratchett books for stress relief in between the real reading (and more recently, writing) that i've had to do quite constantly for the last month or more.  they're a more efficient and less distracting escape than the internet, so i've been carrying them around, reading before lectures, when i wake up in the morning, right before bed, etc, and devouring them in bigger chunks on my off-days. 

unfortunately, today i got to the end of wax's paperbacks, and the next book in the series at least isn't here because her brother has borrowed it.  now, of course we have lots of other books, including a fair supply of post-apocalyptic science fiction which my parents sent for wax and which she has not read any of. i'm reluctant to read them in the same way, though. 

i find pratchett engaging and light reading, easy to pick up and put down, and because it's humour, excellent stress relief.  of course, i could just read some other humour--wait, except all my dave barry, for instance, is in alabama, belonging to the tremendous family of Books I Asked My Parents To Mail Me As Much As A Year Ago That They Still Haven't Mailed Yet.  most of the things that i used to re-read for stress relief before moving to finland--diana wynne jones, patricia wrede, georgette heyer, certain things by connie willis, fred saberhagen, and occasionally roger zelazny, some badficcish mercedes lackey--also belong to that family.

of course there's no lack of things to read, but that's precisely the problem.  i don't want to read partier och partisystem i finland before bed.  it's not properly soothing, and it's not probably boring enough to counteract the brain-stimulating effect of being forced to read in swedish.

rps rec

this doesn't go on the recs page¹, but i just had to mention it because i liked it so much:  a piece of matt damon/ben affleck rps that doesn't suck--that not only doesn't suck but is very good!  anybody remember that archive i found a year and a half ago or so, the one full of grammar so bad the stories were occasionally anatomically impossible?  i'd basically given up on anything remotely decent existing in the fandom, after i exhausted google that one time.  and then i was just following links and i found THIS:

daredevil's dilemma by cupidsbow.  1, 2, 3, 4 parts of a wip.  (but usually i hate wips, and i encourage like-minded people to read it anyway.)  pg to r.  this is, in my opinion, more or less what rps should be like.  good, engaging, funny dialogue, realistic details, occasional beautiful sensory images, some really remarkably tense peaks of emotion and just wow.

this reminds me of the equally astounding situation when i discovered stellaluna_ producing truly excellent mac/danny slash for csi:ny (a basically unheard-of event in any csi related fandom as far as i can tell) and keeping it on fanfiction.net (not known for containing lots of truly excellent fic, really).  i don't think i have been this delightfully surprised, in terms of author/fandom/etc discovery, since then.


1. that is, yet. because i don't rec wips except in extremely extenuating circumstances.